Saturday, November 28, 2015

Fidelity Clearing & Custody
is launching a new program that combines technology and education to
help advisors better protect clients with diminished capacity from
financial abuse.

It’s an issue many
advisors are already facing with their clients. One in five advisors
report having seen financial abuse of their senior clients, according to
a recent survey conducted by Fidelity of over 300 financial
professionals across all channels.

“With
the graying of the population, this is an issue that is important and
needs attention,” said David Canter, executive vice president of
Fidelity Clearing & Custody’s practice management and consulting
division.

And yet, advisors are not
trained medical professionals. “They may see signs that a client is
suffering from diminished capacity such as confusion, but they’re not
doctors. So the question is then, how do you go from there?” Canter
said.

Fidelity is hoping to offer
some solutions by partnering with EverSafe, a technology provider with
software that monitors clients’ accounts for suspicious activity.
Fidelity’s clients, including RIAs and broker/dealers, will be able to
keep an eye on client assets across thousands of financial institutions
and allow clients to appoint a trusted advocate to monitor account
activity.

Advisors who sign onto the
program will receive a 20 percent discount on EverSafe’s services. The
company’s services start at $7.99 a month for retail clients, although
pricing depends on the group size and the service package selected.

In
addition to the collaboration with EverSafe, Fidelity’s program will
provide advisors with continuing education in through white papers and
webinars, as well as sample policies and procedures they can customize
and implement within their businesses.

“There
is no silver bullet when you’re addressing ‘silver tsunami,’” Canter
said, noting that Fidelity’s program was prompted by conversations with
advisors who were already working through complicated situations and
looking for help.,

The potential
for financial abuse may be on the rise as well. The Alzheimer’s
Association predicts that by 2050, more than 13 million people over the
age of 65 will be suffering from Alzheimer’s disease. Already about
three-quarters of advisors say they are working with clients who have
some form of diminished capacity, according to Fidelity’s research.

Both firms and regulators are keenly aware of the need to act. Last month, the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority rolled out a rule proposal aimed at helping firms and financial advisors deal with alleged financial exploitation of senior investors.

Under
the proposal, firms would be required to collect information for a
“trusted contact” when an account is opened or when personal information
is updated for investors 65 or older. The regulator is also proposing a
15-day “safe harbor” period that allows firms to suspend the
distribution of funds or securities from the accounts of senior
investors when exploitation is suspected.

The
proposal—which is open for comments through Nov. 30, 2015—requires
firms to notify the trusted contact or an immediate family member that a
hold has been placed on the account and why. Firms have up to two
business days after placing the hold to send notification and must
retain records of it.

TALLAHASSEE (CBSMiami/NSF) – A Broward County circuit judge
could face disciplinary action after a series of events that stemmed
from an email to an assistant public defender.

The state Judicial Qualifications Commission, which
investigates possible wrongdoing by judges, found probable cause for
charges against Broward Circuit Judge John Contini.

The issue started with a March 16th email sent by Contini
sent to an assistant public defender and later disclosed to prosecutors.
The email, which included a sentencing order from another court, was
viewed by prosecutors as an offer by Contini of research and drafting
assistance to the public defender’s office. As a result, the state
sought a disqualification against Contini and ultimately took the issue
to the 4th District Court of Appeal, according to the filings this week.

During the appeal, a stay was placed on hundreds of cases.

“As a result, many of the cases before your (Contini’s)
division were effectively frozen, and defendants who were incarcerated
had to remain behind bars because you were unable to make any rulings or
determinations in their case,” the Judicial Qualifications Commission
said.

The commission also alleged that Contini violated judicial canons “by
exhibiting discourteous, impatient, and undignified conduct during
in-court discussions” of the appeal. In part, Contini is alleged to have
described a position of the Attorney General’s Office, which handled
the appeal, as a “lie from the pit of hell,” according to the filings.

The Supreme Court has the ultimate authority in deciding whether to discipline judges.

Michael Eakin is being investigated for his role in an explicit email ring

HARRISBURG,
Pa. (AP) - The board that investigates misconduct allegations against
Pennsylvania judges said Tuesday it will soon decide whether charges are
warranted against state Supreme Court Justice Michael Eakin over his
email practices.

Eakin is under investigation for his role in an
explicit email ring that also involved other judges and the state
attorney general's office. He has publicly apologized for what he
described as insensitive and out-of-character emails from an account at
Yahoo.com under the name "John Smith."

The Judicial Conduct Board
wrote Eakin's lawyer to say its rules probably did not permit them to
stop an investigation and send the case directly to the Court of
Judicial Discipline, as Eakin requested.

"The board's completion
of the investigation is necessary to fulfill our responsibility to
determine if probable cause exists to file formal charges in the Court
of Judicial Discipline and, if appropriate, present the case in support
of the charges," wrote board member James Schwartzman, who signed the
letter to Eakin lawyer Bill Costopoulos. "The board will not abdicate
its duties and responsibilities."

Schwartzman said the investigation "is almost complete and (the
board) hopes to reach a decision on whether to file a complaint in the
near future."

The charges the board brings are not criminal
charges. If the court determines there is sufficient evidence of
misconduct, it can impose discipline that includes reprimand, suspension
with or without pay, or permanent removal from office.

Costopoulos
asked the board last week to immediately "remove the matter" to the
Court of Judicial Discipline to alleviate mistrust of the process.

The board's chief counsel, Bob Graci, and chairwoman, District Judge Jayne Duncan, have both stepped aside from the Eakin case.

A
newspaper reported that another board member received pornographic
images in an email from then-Justice Seamus McCaffery, who abruptly
retired a year ago after his fellow justices suspended him.

Chief Justice James Hardesty made the recommendation during Monday's meeting of the state's commission analyzing the administration of guardianships.

"This
is a very complex matter that has a lot of moving parts," Hardesty told
the Review-Journal after the meeting. "We're talking about making some
significant reforms to the process."

The panel was formed after longstanding problems with the system
-- which handles thousands of guardianship cases in Clark County each
year -- were exposed in a series of Las Vegas Review-Journal articles
published in April. Highlighted cases showed a lack of oversight by the
courts that left infirm and incapacitated people vulnerable to financial
abuse.

The permanent committee would act in similar fashion to
the current panel, Hardesty said, and would help ensure the
effectiveness of the recommended changes.

"We need to be sure that
the reforms that are implemented work the way that they were intended
and are modified where appropriate," he said.

Most of the rest of
Monday's discussion centered around the idea of ensuring legal
representation for those faced with guardianship, or wards.

Oftentimes
the potential wards aren't mentally competent to understand the court
proceedings, either due to age or a mental disability.

Barbara
Buckley, executive director of the nonprofit law firm Legal Aid of
Southern Nevada, recommended a system similar to what is used in
criminal courts. Under that model, potential wards who can't afford a
private attorney would be provided with one before the guardianship
could be approved.

The panel worried about the cost providing legal representation for every ward could present for the counties.

But
Hardesty dismissed that argument, saying funding issues shouldn't
prevent wards from being represented fairly in court and having their
rights preserved.

"If the governments of Clark County consider this important, then they better put their resources behind it," he said.

Hardesty
also said during the meeting he would like to ask the Supreme Court to
extend the panel's time frame another six months. The panel was
originally scheduled to form a set of recommended changes to the
guardianship system by Dec. 31, but meetings dominated by public comment
have left little time for the panel to discuss the issues at hand.

The
next public meeting for the panel is scheduled for Dec. 15 at the Las
Vegas office of the State Bar of Nevada, 3100 W. Charleston Blvd. A time
has not been set for that meeting.

South Pasadena Convalescent Hospital was decertified by federal regulators in January

By Henry A. WaxmanSpecial to The Bee

Imagine your elderly mother had a stroke and upon discharge from the
hospital she needs to go directly to a nursing home. As you’re admitting
her, the nursing home makes you sign an agreement giving up all of your
legal rights in the event of a future dispute.

You might not like
it, but what choice do you have? If you refuse to sign, she’ll be left
with nowhere to go for the care she needs.

Unfortunately, this is the harsh reality facing families in this
stressful, often dire situation – and it’s one that will continue under
regulations proposed by the federal Center for Medicare and Medicaid
Services.

That’s why, as an original author of the Federal Nursing
Home Reform Act that granted the center regulatory authority over
nursing homes, I strongly urge it to ban forced arbitration because its
sole function is to evade accountability.

Obviously, no one enters
a nursing home expecting to be mistreated or a victim of malpractice.
And most nursing homes provide high-quality care. But not all do, and
not all of their problems are caught or corrected by regulators. In
fact, more than one of every three patients admitted to a nursing
facility has suffered a medical error, infection or other serious
injury. So when patients are victims of negligence, wrongdoing or abuse,
they must have the opportunity to pursue justice, not only as their
right, but as an indispensable means of exposing poorly run facilities
and forcing them to fix what’s wrong.

Predispute arbitration
clauses deny patients and their families this fundamental right – an
injustice made all the more egregious because they are almost always
signed under duress.

And it gets worse: If your mother suffers
abuse or neglect and you choose to do something about it, you will enter
a kangaroo court in which the outcome is rigged against you. Not only
does the nursing home choose the arbitrator (who then has a financial
incentive to side with the home to obtain repeat business), but you have
no right to appeal the decision of the arbitrator, who may have little
or no legal training.

Plus, the proceedings are kept secret, so
none of the problems that caused your mother harm will ever see the
light of day. In fact, you are often under a gag order banning you from
raising these issues with outsiders, including state inspectors.

Simply put, this makes a mockery of the law I helped write and of my decades of work in Congress to strengthen patient rights.

While
the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services acknowledges this, and
while its proposed rules purport to enhance residents’ quality of care,
the specific criteria for binding arbitration agreements places a nearly
insurmountable roadblock for families seeking justice.

None of
the organizations opposing predispute forced arbitration oppose
voluntary arbitration after a dispute. While some plaintiffs may want
their day in court, others may choose arbitration as a means of reducing
the cost and increasing the speed of a remedy. What matters is that
this decision occurs after harm has been done, with both sides on equal
footing, jointly determining ground rules and selecting an independent
arbitrator.

No one should accept the denial of justice and evasion of accountability that would result from the proposed rule.

Henry
A. Waxman, who represented California’s 33rd Congressional District
from 1975 to 2015, is a past chairman of the House Energy and Commerce
and Oversight and Government Reform committees and is now a consultant
for the American Association for Justice, the advocacy group for trial
lawyers. He can be contacted at henry@waxmanstrategies.com.

Thursday, November 26, 2015

An 80 year old man was sitting on the sofa in his house along with his 45 years old highly educated son. Suddenly a crow perched on their window.

The Father asked his Son, “What is this?” The Son replied “It is a crow”. After a few minutes, the Father asked his Son the 2nd time, “What is this?” The Son said “Father, I have just now told you “It’s a crow”. After a little while, the old Father again asked his Son the 3rd time, What is this?” At this time some expression of irritation was felt in the Son’s tone when he said to his Father with a rebuff. “It’s a crow, a crow”.A little after, the Father again asked his Son the 4th time, “What is
this?”

This time the Son shouted at his Father, “Why do you keep asking me the same question again and again, although I have told you so many times ‘IT IS A CROW’. Are you not able to understand this?”

A little later the Father went to his room and came back with an old tattered diary, which he had maintained since his Son was born. On opening a page, he asked his Son to read that page. When the son read it, the following words were written in the diary :- “Today my little son aged three was sitting with me on the sofa, when a crow was sitting on the window. My Son asked me 23 times what it was, and I replied to him all 23 times that it was a Crow.

I hugged him lovingly each time he asked me the same question again and again for 23 times. I did not at all feel irritated I rather felt affection for my innocent child”.

"Your loved one has dementia." These are words no one ever wants to hear yet, every day, many hear this awful news from a loved one's medical care provider.

Each day, families are faced with the decision to place their loved one into a nursing home, as they are no longer able to care for themselves and no one is able to commit to the full time care necessary to take care of their loved one. So, often the decision needs to be made quickly and there is little planning time nor do people know what to look for when searching for a facility.

This guide will not only give you information on dementia and Alzheimer's disease, but it will also inform you about medications, alternate approaches and the abuse that many elders endure. Lastly, the author has created a list of what to look for, and ask about, when you are interviewing and touring potential facilities.

The checklist is the most comprehensive of its kind and covers many areas one may not think to look for or ask about during a tour. There are over eighteen topics with 200+ questions relating to Plan of Care, Accessibility, Dining and Nutrition, Staff, Activities, Common Areas, Rooms, Residents and Safety and Evacuation Plans. Should you want to bring the checklist with you, the author with send you a link so you can print the checklist.

Wednesday, November 25, 2015

Our mission is to expose and remedy corruption in the Probate Court of Cook County, Illinois.

We assist, educate and enlighten families of the dead, the dying, the disabled and the aged to better understand their rights in order to protect themselves from the excesses of the Probate Court of Cook County.

ProbateSharks.com is dedicated to networking the human element of people to people. We join together in reforming the corrupt Cook County Probate Court system.

They
found him in the living room, crumpled up on the mottled carpet. The
police did. Sniffing a fetid odor, a neighbor had called 911. The
apartment was in north-central Queens, in an unassertive building on
79th Street in Jackson Heights.

The
apartment belonged to a George Bell. He lived alone. Thus the
presumption was that the corpse also belonged to George Bell. It was a
plausible supposition, but it remained just that, for the puffy body on
the floor was decomposed and unrecognizable. Clearly the man had not
died on July 12, the Saturday last year when he was discovered, nor the
day before nor the day before that. He had lain there for a while,
nothing to announce his departure to the world, while the hyperkinetic
city around him hurried on with its business.

Neighbors
had last seen him six days earlier, a Sunday. On Thursday, there was a
break in his routine. The car he always kept out front and moved from
one side of the street to the other to obey parking rules sat on the
wrong side. A ticket was wedged beneath the wiper. The woman next door
called Mr. Bell. His phone rang and rang.

Then the smell of death and the police and the sobering reason that George Bell did not move his car.

Each
year around 50,000 people die in New York, and each year the mortality
rate seems to graze a new low, with people living healthier and longer. A
great majority of the deceased have relatives and friends who soon
learn of their passing and tearfully assemble at their funeral. A
reverent death notice appears. Sympathy cards accumulate. When the
celebrated die or there is some heart-rending killing of the innocent,
the entire city might weep.

A
much tinier number die alone in unwatched struggles. No one collects
their bodies. No one mourns the conclusion of a life. They are just a
name added to the death tables. In the year 2014, George Bell, age 72,
was among those names.

George Bell —
a simple name, two syllables, the minimum. There were no obvious
answers as to who he was or what shape his life had taken. What worries
weighed on him. Whom he loved and who loved him.

Like most New Yorkers, he lived in the corners, under the pale light of obscurity.

Yet
death even in such forlorn form can cause a surprising amount of
activity, setting off an elaborate, lurching process that involves a
hodgepodge of interlocking characters whose livelihoods flow in part or
in whole from death.

With
George Bell, the ripples from the process would spill improbably and
seemingly by happenstance from the shadows of Queens to upstate New York
and Virginia and Florida. Dozens of people who never knew him, all cogs
in the city’s complicated machinery of mortality, would find themselves
settling the affairs of an ordinary man who left this world without
anyone in particular noticing.

In
discovering a death, you find a life story and perhaps meaning. Could
anything in the map of George Bell’s existence have explained his lonely
end? Possibly not. But it was true that George Bell died carrying some
secrets. Secrets about how he lived and secrets about who mattered most
to him. Those secrets would bring sorrow. At the same time, they would
deliver rewards. Death does that. It closes doors but also opens them. (Continue Reading)

Jolene Brackey has a vision. A vision that will soon look beyond the challenges of Alzheimer's disease and focus more of our energy on creating moments of joy. When a person has short-term memory loss, his life is made up of moments. But if you think about it, our memory is made up of moments, too. We are not able to create a perfectly wonderful day with someone who has dementia, but it is absolutely attainable to create a perfectly wonderful moment; a moment that puts a smile on their face, a twinkle in their eye, or triggers a memory. Five minutes later, they won't remember what you did or said, but the feeling you left them with will linger.

Tuesday, November 24, 2015

EXCLUSIVE
Mickey Rooney's
stepson now concedes he owes the famed actor $2.8 million for allegedly
siphoning off a ton of money from Mickey's financial accounts, but
there's a GIGANTIC catch.

Christopher Aber and his wife,
Christina, have just settled with Mickey's conservators, after
allegations they played funny with Mickey's money.There were also
allegations the couple deprived Mickey of food, meds, and even blocked
him from leaving his home.

The whole thing escalated when the 93-year-old actor testified before Congress on elder abuse.

So
now Christopher and Christina -- who have declared bankruptcy -- have
folded. So how, you ask, can Mickey get $2.8 mil? Well under the
settlement, Christopher and Christina have a homeowner's insurance
policy that arguably covers this type of wrongdoing. So Mickey's
lawyers think they can use the settlement to go after the insurance
company and get their dough.

Here's the rub. The insurance
company has already made it clear ... it's not paying anything because
the alleged abuses were intentional, and that's not covered under the
policy.

So Mickey's lawyers are now going to sue the insurance
company and demand not only the $2.8 mil but also punitive damages for
bad faith denial of coverage.

In the summer of 2013, a young woman named Jenny Hatch won a landmark legal battle protecting her right to make her own life decisions using supported decision-making instead of being subjected to guardianship. Nationwide, people with intellectual, developmental and other disabilities continue to be placed under guardianship, losing their rights to make basic, fundamental decisions like where to live, what to do and who to see.

Supported decision-making (SDM) is an effective, less restrictive alternative to guardianship that uses trusted friends, family members and advocates to give people with disabilities the help they need and want to understand the situations they face and the choices they must make, so they can make their own decisions. SDM shows great promise for increasing self-determination and improving quality of life outcomes.
Source:YouTube: Introduction to Guardianship and Alternatives

NATCHEZ — A Natchez woman will spend time in prison and have to pay nearly $44,000 in
restitution for her role in the embezzlement of funds from an elderly woman under her care.

The funds were reportedly used to illicitly purchase pain medication.

Evelyn Ann Whatley, 59, pleaded guilty Monday in Adams County Circuit Court to one count of
exploitation of a vulnerable person.

Judge Forrest “Al” Johnson sentenced Whatley to six years in the Mississippi Department of
Corrections with a requirement that one of those years be served and the other five suspended and
served as a supervised probation.

As a condition of the supervised probation, Whatley would have to pay $43,985 in restitution to the
victim’s family. The amount was determined in a previous civil judgment in Judge Walt Brown’s
county court.

“I have always thought this was one of the worst things somebody could do, to steal from an
elderly person, especially when it is over and over and over,” Johnson said.

The maximum penalty possible for one count exploitation of a vulnerable person is 10 years prison.

Special Attorney General Larry Baker prosecuted the case, and said the state would have proven
Whatley had used Rita Holland’s Regions Bank card 35 times and Holland’s United Mississippi
Bank card 79 times to obtain cash between Nov. 6, 2014, and Feb. 28, 2015.

The state had video footage of Whatley making the withdrawals, he said.

Holland, 83, died in February, and Baker said three of the withdrawals happened after the victim’s
death.

“It is the state’s position that if there is any person where jail time of some sort is warranted, this
would be the case,” Baker said. “She was charged with taking care of Mrs. Holland, and she did the
opposite — she stole from her.”

Prior to her sentencing, Whatley’s defense attorney called two witnesses to the stand,
Natchez-Adams County Metro Narcotics Commander David Lindsey and Russell Frazier, an
investigator with the Mississippi Attorney General’s Vulnerable Adults Unit.

Frazier said during his investigation Whatley told him she had experienced a relapse of an
addiction to pain medication and had spent the money buying pain pills.

“I asked would she be willing to put the drug dealer out of business, too, and arranged to put her in
contact with the people who could do that,” Frazier said.

Lindsey testified Whatley participated as an undercover buyer of narcotics for the agency, and her
help led to the arrest of someone who “wasn’t a high-level dealer.” The drug case is waiting to go
before the grand jury, he said.

Frazier and Lindsey both said they made no promises about sentencing to Whatley for her
participation as an undercover buyer.

Before she was sentenced, Whatley said she wanted to apologize to Holland’s family for “whatever
I have done.”

Holland’s son-in-law, James Fuglaar, said the family’s interest in pursuing the case was to make
sure it could be used as an example that would serve as a deterrent against the exploitation of the
elderly.

“It has been very frustrating for us, particularly for my wife, to have to deal with this at the same
time she was having to mourn and deal with her mother’s death,” he said.

Whatley was immediately remanded to the custody of the Adams County Sheriff’s Office after
sentencing.

Monday, November 23, 2015

VOORHEES, N.J. - Startling allegations of abuse inside a New Jersey nursing home have family members up in arms.

FOX
29 Investigates has the pictures and talks to loved ones. Our Jeff Cole
investigates these serious claims of neglect and a cover-up.

Nikki Thompson says the time she spends with her 9 year old are moments of pure joy. But the reason she's home is not.

Thompson, a licensed practical nurse, says she's been fired, forced out of her job helping the frail elderly.

"Did you like the work?" Cole asked.

"I loved it," Thompson said. Asked why, she said, "It meant a lot to me to be a part of their lives."

Thompson
worked at the Voorhees Center nursing home in South Jersey. She was a
charge nurse on the day shift of a long-term care unit.

She says the charge nurse makes sure things run smoothly.

Thompson
claims her eight-year career at Voorhees unraveled, and she got an
anonymous threat that read "snitches get stitches" when she blew the
whistle on what she says are the serious problems which led to an image.
It’s a picture of an elderly woman with dementia tied to her
wheelchair.

A Hannibal man faces a charge of Financial Exploitation of the Elderly, involving a home improvement scam.

The Marion County Sheriff's Office says the victim paid
a contractor in advance for materials for a project, but the contractor
never came back to perform the work, even after being called several
times by the victim.

39 year old Daniel Bennett was arrested Wednesday
afternoon in the 2100 block of Gordon Street, and faces one count of
Financial Exploitation of the Elderly. His first court appearance was
Friday morning.

Bennett's in the Marion County Jail on 25 thousand dollars' bond, and will be arraigned December 4th.

The following items were taken from area police department reports and
press releases. An arrest does not constitute a finding of guilt.

FINANCIAL EXPLOITATION
Monserosa V. Santana, 43,
of the 2400 block of South Keeler Avenue, Chicago, was charged Nov. 10
with financial exploitation of a disabled person, a felony. Santana was
working as a person's caregiver, when she allegedly made $306 worth of
fraudulent purchases using the person's money or resources between April
6 and June 11.

ELEANOR HALL: The Council on the Ageing is calling for authorities to do
more to encourage elderly people to speak up if they're being abused in
their own homes.

A New South Wales Upper House inquiry is
looking into the physical, financial and psychological abuse against
vulnerable elderly people.

The council says it's a huge issue that goes largely unreported

As Bridget Brennan reports.

BRIDGET
BRENNAN: It's not clear how many victims of elder abuse are suffering
in silence in their own homes, being abused by people they know.

Ian Day believes it could be a significant number.

He's the chief executive of the Council on the Ageing in New South Wales.

IAN
DAY: We know that it exists and we know that it's common and many
people have at least awareness of it going on or suspicion of it going
on.

What we don't have is a way of properly measuring it because people don't necessarily come forward.

BRIDGET
BRENNAN: A New South Wales parliamentary committee is investigating the
issue of elder abuse, to look at ways to encourage victims to come
forward.

Elder abuse can take many forms including psychological, financial, physical and sexual abuse.

As
the population ages, John Watkins, from Alzheimer's Australia New South
Wales, is concerned elder abuse will become more prevalent.

JOHN
WATKINS: Abuse of all forms certainly will be a factor that we need to
consider in relation to those people and a subset of that group, those
people living with dementia 340,000 Australians and within 15 years,
half a million.

My concern is very real for the protection of those people with dementia because they are even more vulnerable.

BRIDGET
BRENNAN: Academics from the Australian Longitudinal Study on Women's
Health have been surveying elderly women on the issue of family abuse.

They found the most common forms of abuse is financial exploitation.

Meredith Tavener has assisted with the study, she's a researcher from the University of Newcastle.

MEREDITH TAVENER: They can be exploited, for example being over-charged for things.

Financial abuse would be more likely if you knew someone perhaps because they may have access to that information about you.

If
you are receiving care from someone, perhaps they go shopping for you,
maybe they don't show you the receipt; Why don't you just write me a
cheque and I'll use that instead of the cash?

Things like that, so it can come in very different forms and corners.

BRIDGET
BRENNAN: Apart from abuse that occurs in nursing homes, there are no
laws in Australia requiring people to report abuse of the elderly to
police.

John Watkins, from Alzheimer's Australia New South Wales,
thinks the New South Wales inquiry should investigate the need legal
reform.

But he thinks a large scale awareness campaign aimed at victims could be more effective.

JOHN WATKINS: We've talked about that and we're open minded on it.

We
haven't said that it should occur because mandatory reporting will go
some way towards helping those cases where people know of it and it is
reported to someone in authority.

But at the moment we don't have a regime in place for it to be reported to. Who is it reported to now?

Who would mandatory reporting requirement apply to?

There's a lot more work to be done first in putting in place protective measures before we go to that.

And I think the first thing that we should do and can do is a proper education campaign across our entire community.

BRIDGET
BRENNAN: Ian Day from the Council on the Ageing New South Wales does
not support new laws to make the reporting of abuse mandatory.

He says many elderly people would be distressed to see their family members face criminal charges.

IAN DAY: Forget it.

There's absolutely no way that anybody would support mandatory reporting.

This is something you've got to come back to.

This is the rights of the person. We've got to encourage the person to take the first step.

They're
not into retribution, they're not into restitution. They just want it
to stop and as a result if there's a risk or if they think there's a
risk of their child getting into trouble, that's another reason why they
don't report it.

ELEANOR HALL: That's Ian Day from the Council on Ageing New South Wales, speaking to Bridget Brennan.

Sunday, November 22, 2015

"NO PLACE LIKE HOME" documentary on life in nursing homes and assisted living facilities.

Kym Stover is a screenwriter, producer, marketer in the film industry. She has 2 kids & was born in the Los Angeles area. She worked in the health care industry as a CNA for over 15 yr. She had an older brother with autism who died under suspicious circumstances in an assisted living facility a few years back. She now lives in the L.A. area.

Tracee Beebe is a respected screenwriter & director in the film industry. She has 1 kid. She lives in the Napa Valley area of CA. She owns Sunrise Horse Rescue & also rescues dogs as well.

Bobby Schindler is a human rights activist & advocate who heads up the Terri Schiavo Life & Hope Network in PA. He was in a well-publicized battle to save his sister Terri from court-ordered euthanasia about a decade ago.

Sara Harvey is one of our film’s subjects from NY State who is currently in a battle to have her husband Gary Harvey, an army veteran freed from a court-ordered guardianship.

A male nursing aide who raped an 83-year-old woman
suffering from Alzheimer’s disease was sentenced Thursday to eight years
in prison during an emotional hearing in Hennepin County District
Court.

Seven days before Christmas last year, George Sumo
Kpingbah, 77, was seen moving in a “back and forth, thrusting motion”
while standing at the edge of the elderly woman’s bed at Walker
Methodist Health Center in south Minneapolis, according to a state
investigation. Kpingbah pleaded guilty in September to third-degree
criminal sexual conduct.

In powerful courtroom testimony on Thursday, the
woman’s daughter spoke of her mother and her family’s trauma and urged
the judge to show no mercy.

“Now and for the rest of my life, when I think of
my mother at Christmastime, or when my mother passes and I reflect on
the final years of her life, I will have tattooed on my brain the
knee-buckling shock of getting that call … letting me know that my
mother had been raped,” Maya Fischer said.

Hennepin County District Judge Elizabeth Cutter
sentenced Kpingbah to a year more than prosecutors sought. She referred
to the rape as “extremely devastating” to the family and said it
warranted the maximum possible sentence in part because Kpingbah had
“violated a position of trust” at the nursing home.

“This [rape] affects everyone who has to place a loved one in a facility,” Cutter said.

On hearing the judge’s sentence, relatives of the
rape survivor grabbed one another in bear hugs and began crying. “All we
ever wanted was for justice to be served,” Fischer said.

Kpingbah clutched a small Bible during the hearing
and apologized to the court. “I would just say to the family … and to
everyone affected by my actions that I am sorry, I am sorry,” he said.
He vowed to take his Bible to prison. Members of his church occupied
nearly half the courtroom.

Urging the judge for leniency, Kpingbah’s attorney
said his client had fled violence in Liberia and had devoted much of his
life to ensuring that his three daughters migrated to America. “There
is no rational basis to explain [the rape],” said his court-appointed
attorney, Joseph Kaminsky. “It was an unspeakable act.”

Kpingbah also has agreed to an unusual settlement
in a separate lawsuit. In that case, Kpingbah has agreed to pay $15
million to the estate of the rape survivor if he is ever convicted again
of criminal sexual conduct in any other case, or is ever found liable
again for the abuse or neglect of a vulnerable adult.

While substantiated cases of rape in Minnesota
senior homes are extremely rare, the state has seen a sharp increase in
incidents of abuse and neglect. The number of maltreatment complaints
received by the Minnesota Department of Health nearly doubled between
2010 and 2013, from 283 to 553, state records show.

Governor Steve Beshear today announced that he has signed an
emergency regulation requiring certain health care providers to obtain
national criminal background checks on new employees and other
individuals who provide direct one-on-one care to elderly residents or
patients in order to obtain or renew the facility’s license to operate
in the Commonwealth.

Effective Jan. 1, 2016, approximately 1,300 providers will be
required to obtain national background checks for all new employees.
These providers include nursing homes, intermediate care facilities and
Intermediate Care Facilities for Individuals with Intellectual
Disabilities (ICF/IID); adult day health care programs; assisted living
communities; home health agencies; hospice; personal services agencies;
providers of home and community-based services; personal care homes; and
staffing agencies, including nursing pools that have contracts to
provide staff to one or more of the listed employer types.

Expanded background checks are aimed at protecting the elderly

“Protecting the elderly and other individuals residing in these
facilities is not only important – it is our duty as state leaders,”
said Gov. Beshear. “All too often, these vulnerable citizens become
victims of the very individuals who are supposed to be caring for them.
This regulation, based upon a federal law allowing these background
checks, will ensure we are able to thoroughly track the history of
anyone who has committed such an offense, whether it occurred in
Kentucky or out of state, and ensure they will not be working at health
care facilities in the Commonwealth.”

Prior to utilizing this federal law, state law required only
name-based, Kentucky-specific background checks, creating a loophole
that allowed applicants seeking employment in these long-term care and
other settings to hide criminal actions committed in other states.
Meanwhile, the prevalence of alleged abuse or exploitation of seniors in
these settings remained significant. Since May 2014, more than 2,600
total complaints have been lodged against long-term care providers,
nearly 30 percent of which were directly related to suspected abuse or
exploitation of residents.

National background checks
“By requiring fingerprint-supported background checks that search for
both state and federal FBI criminal records, applicants will not be
able to hide criminal actions committed in other states,” said
Cabinet
for Health and Family Services Secretary Audrey Tayse Haynes. “National
background checks are a critical initiative that dramatically improve
the ability of long-term care and other providers to timely and
accurately research the backgrounds of potential employees, ruling out
individuals with histories of violence, abuse or exploitation that
occurred in other states.”

Since receiving an initial federal grant in 2011 from the U.S.
Department of Health and Human Services, Centers for Medicare and
Medicaid Services (CMS), the Cabinet for Health and Family Services
(CHFS) Office of Inspector General implemented the Kentucky Applicant
Registry and Employment Screening background check program, also known
as KARES, and offered the statewide program on a voluntary basis with 35
fingerprint scanners located in Kentucky.

KARES was recently awarded an additional $689,000 in CMS grant
funding to add 35 more fingerprint scanners throughout Kentucky,
bringing the total number of scanner locations to 70.

“This program improves resident and patient safety and promotes a
higher quality of care,” said CHFS Inspector General Maryellen Mynear.
“The electronic program has now been fully tested by voluntary
participants over the last 18 months, and the feedback has been
overwhelmingly positive regarding its ease of use, cost effectiveness
and speed. Our office will assist providers as they apply for initial
licensure or renew their existing license to ensure a smooth and timely
transition to a national criminal background check program that meets
the requirements of this regulation.”

In signing the regulation, Gov. Beshear noted the success of KARES.
The electronic program has been operational since May 2014 on a
voluntary basis and allows employers to perform all necessary background
checks – from professional licenses to abuse registries to both state
and federal criminal databases – in one step through electronic
fingerprinting. The program significantly reduces the time required to
complete a background check.

Kentucky State Police Commissioner Rodney Brewer said KSP maintains
the criminal history repository on behalf of the Commonwealth and has
partnered with CHFS to provide pertinent information for this
initiative.

It
should have been just a routine business trip for Emily Ladau from New
York City to Minnesota, where she was scheduled to speak at a disability
rights conference. But the return flight home on Delta turned into a
nightmare.

Ladau,
who has Larsen Syndrome — a genetic joint and muscle disorder that has
left her unable to walk — requires a wheelchair for transportation. The
crew checked her wheelchair, like they always do, and escorted her to
her seat on the plane via one of airline’s aisle wheelchairs. But she
was in for a shock when they landed.

“When
I arrived at the gate I discovered the staff had no idea where my
wheelchair was,” she recalls.

Even more disconcerting, none of the
airline personnel seemed concerned. “They told me to walk over to
baggage claim and file a missing luggage report,” she says. “By then, I
was in tears, trying to explain to them, ‘How do you expect me to walk?
My wheelchair is my legs!’ They were treating a $15,000 piece of
equipment like a missing Samsonite suitcase.”

Ladau’s
friend pushed her through the airport in the airline’s flimsy aisle
chair, a process that was uncomfortable, jarring and took about 45
minutes. They found the wheelchair, sitting untagged in front of an
office near baggage claim.

Passenger D’Arcee Neal made headlines recently when he crawled off of his flight
after United Airlines failed to bring him his wheelchair. But while his
story inspired outrage — and an apology from United — disability rights
activists say his story is more the norm than the exception when it
comes to air travel for people with physical disabilities.

Under
the Air Carrier Access Act of 1986, airlines have a slew of regulations
they need to comply with to meet the needs of people with disabilities,
including movable aisle armrests, accessible bathrooms, and providing
assistance when it comes to boarding, deplaning, and making connections.
Yet the Department of Transportation (DOT) still receives 600 to 700
formal disability-related complaints per year, or about 5 percent of
total airline passenger complaints annually. And the airlines themselves
receive far more: over 27,500 in 2014 for both national and
international travel, according to the DOT.

“For
every claim filed, we believe there are at least 100 other individuals
who experienced the same treatment who don’t bother filing complaints,”
says Dara Baldwin, a public policy analyst at the National Disability
Rights Network in Washington, D.C. Here, Yahoo uncovers some of the most
common issues. (Continue Reading)

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NASGA (National Association to STOP Guardian Abuse, Inc.) is a 501(c)(3) public-interest, civil rights organization formed by victims of unlawful and abusive guardianships and conservatorships. We seek legislative reform of existing law and upgrading of criminal penalties for court-appointed fiduciaries misusing protective proceedings for unjust enrichment and engaging in elder and family abuse.

Our mission is to promote the safety and well being of vulnerable persons subject to injury and damage in their person and property through unlawful and abusive guardianship and/or conservatorship proceedings; to end the growing violations of due process, civil and human rights; to work towards ultimate legislative reform of guardianship as presently practiced; upgrading of criminal penalties for court-appointed fiduciaries misusing protective proceedings for unjust enrichment; and to be a support organization for victims and their families. We carry out our mission through research, outreach, education and advocacy; and going forward, by alliance with community interest, law reform, civil rights and other advocacy organizations.

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